


he is telling me too many stories all at once

by gointorosedale



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-19 06:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gointorosedale/pseuds/gointorosedale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a taint to Rumplestilskin, a kind of darkness that bleeds out of his skin, spills like blood-red ink onto everything he touches.</p>
<p>Otherwise known as: Rumplestiltskin is sad and doesn't like himself all that much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	he is telling me too many stories all at once

> Fairy tales have rules. You are a princess or you aren’t. You are pure at heart or you aren’t. If you are pure at heart, or lucky, you might catch a break. And there are other rules, like _anything can happen_. As well as _you will not get exactly what you want_.
> 
> Richard Siken, The Definitive Version

 

Sometimes Rumplestiltskin looks at Belle and feels full to bursting with love, feels light and boyish with adoration, and sometimes he looks at Belle and feels nothing but fear, a familiar terror that makes his fingers tremble and his heart race.

It's always like that with Belle, always blurry and strange and ever-changing, like spinning around in circles for too long. He can look at her in the morning – watch the slow twitch of her eyelids as she wakes up, the lazy smile, the sleep-rough _good morning_ , the beams of sunlight haloing her face (and Rumplestilskin may not know much of this world's religion but he has dreams sometimes, of Belle white-winged and sweet-voiced, a real angel) – and feel his own face curl into an unfamiliar sort of half-smile and think he's done everything right, and be glad for it, and bask in the knowledge that he can have this.

He can watch her during breakfast, the quick flash of perfect teeth as she laughs at her own joke, jostling his shoulder to get him to laugh as well as she reaches past him for the butter. She's such a morning person and her eyes shine brightest when the soft morning sun falls onto their kitchen table. Rumplestilskin will always envy her early wakefulness (and surely after more than three hundred years getting out of bed should be easy but some days it feels like it's only getting harder) but he tries to be at least mostly aware during breakfast, if only to memorize her smiles and her laughter because he is Rumplestilskin and he is nothing if not a dragon guarding its treasure.

He can watch her in the afternoon, too, and feel the rightness of it. Tending to his herb garden while Belle sits back on a deck chair and reads, closing her eyes after a while and basking in the sun like a cat. Even rainy afternoons spent inside can be perfect with Belle where they were only dreary before, having her curl up on the sofa with a book or wandering around the house to look at the many treasures and even if she's in a different room entirely, the house feels lighter with her presence.

Sometimes he'll spend entire afternoons debating books they've both read with her just because he loves the way her eyes light up when he disagrees, when she sees a challenge (times like that he can see the young princess she was lurking behind her eyes, longing for adventure, to see the world and conquer it).Those afternoons are perfect too, sitting in the quiet of the living room and watching her gesture animatedly, scoff when he makes a sweeping generalization or give that perfectly shocked giggle when he says something outrageous. Those days, he revels in her sheer presence and the knowledge that it will always be there (that she promised, straightforward and simple in a way deals never are, that she simply said _I am staying with you, Rumplestiltskin, for as long as you'll have me_ and didn't ask anything in return) and everything is blissful and sweet and petal-soft.

Nights, however, are dangerous, tricky beasts and more often than not he finds that once they've taken a turn for the worse, they're impossible to change. He'll feel melancholy (the heavy, dragging memories of far too many lifetimes, never quite dulled with age and always waiting just around the corner to strike) slowly creep up on him along with the night sky and by nightfall he'll settle down on his armchair in the study and stay there, motionless, while Belle goes to bed with a resigned sigh. Or worse, he'll look at Belle – brave, beautiful Belle, living in the dragon's lair with a comfortable ease, humming and smiling like he isn't _Rumplestiltskin_ – and feel like the worst kind of monster for having her here.

And then of course the worst, easily the worst, the nights when he feels less Rumplestilskin and more Spindleshanks, more Hobblefoot, more town coward with a bad leg and a runaway wife and a beautiful boy looking up at him with hope and trust and fear while behind him the town points and laughs and spits on the ground.

Those nights, when they settle on the couch after dinner and he looks at her, watches her brush a soft curl back behind her ear and turn a page and all Rumplestilskin can think is _dear god, not her, not her, I can't lose her_ because Rumplestilskin does not get to keep Good Things and Belle is surely a Good Thing (not the best, of course, could never be better than his sweet boy, so much better than his father ever was) and sometime soon, surely, sometimes soon he will ruin her.

Because Rumplestilskin knows himself. After such an eternity with very little company but his own, he knows every nook and cranny of his own weak soul, every dark crevice he'd rather ignore. He knows what he does to Good Things.

At first he'd tried to blame others, say it was the Ogre Wars or Milah or something other than himbecause he was only a simple spinner, only one man and how much destruction could he ever cause? But after a time, seeing the many people he's brought to their knees, their teary-eyed pleas or stoic silent hatred and thinking nothing but _you got what you deserved_ , after a time Rumplestilskin accepts that he is ruin incarnate.

There is a taint to Rumplestilskin, a kind of darkness that bleeds out of his skin, spills like blood-red ink onto everything he touches. It's impossible to get away from, rolls in slow waves after him (destructive and steady and consuming, like lava rolling down the side of a volcano) and always catches up to slowly cover everything and everyone he touches.

It caught up with Milah, who was a sweet-faced lovely girl who kissed with love and laughed like spring rain and then Rumplestilskin married her and everything was ruined. He did it again with Bae, his beautiful Baelfire, who'd always deserved so much more, castles and crowns and feasts in his honor, and Rumplestilskin tried so hard to be the sort of father his boy deserved but he never succeeded and the boy was lost.

And later, a myriad people, a myriad men and women he failed because he is Rumplestilskin and that is what he does. He lets go of people. He loses them. He ruins them.

Rumplestiltskin has a house stuffed to the brim with _things_ , elaborate quills and painted rocking horses and old maps and books and chipped tea cups and boy-clothes, all inanimate because those he can keep, those don't slip (run) away the way people do.

And thinking of all that, looking at Belle as she smiles a small smile at something in her book, he can't help the fear that grips his heart and almost leaves him breathless. Because losing her, losing Belle after having lost everything else, well, there truly wouldn't be anything left of him. Rumplestilskin would evaporate into the air, leaving behind an empty house packed full of _things_ no one else cares about.

But Belle is Belle even on the nights when Rumplestilskin isn't Rumplestilskin, and of course she notices. She looks up at him (straight at him, his brave Belle, never afraid to stare down a beast) and after a beat her face falls into a sympathetic sort of smile and for some reason Belle loves him even on those nights and reaches out with one arm, holding the book in her other hand.

And Rumplestilskin has never been the sort of man to accept comfort in any form from anyone, and he's certainly never been the sort to be anything but perfectly in control. But he's also terrified, gripped by old-world fear like the soldiers are about to come bursting into his house to gather Belle up and take her away to a war (a war, he thinks bitterly, that is centuries and worlds away and still sits awkwardly between them in their living room, an ill-fitting and unwelcome guest) so he gives in and burrows into her, hides from the world like a child.

Belle makes a shushing noise as Rumplestilskin buries his face in the curve of her neck and feels her wrap an arm around him and he can feel his heart slow down, knowing she's near, knowing she's safe (even though Rumplestilskin knows, too, that often being near to him is exactly what makes people unsafe but one fear at a time) and that no one will take her.

And in a few moments he will pull back and sit up and be Rumplestilskin again, inhale and exhale with careful precise movements and rise and maybe go spin, secure in the knowledge that this is his and no one is coming to take her. But for now he is content to let the dark curls of her hair blot out the world and smell only her skin and dusty old books and feel her lightness, her calm, slowly spread out through his body. Because Rumplestiltskin may have darkness under his skin, always itching to reach out and take over others, but his Belle has lightness flowing from her fingertips, exudes peace and warmth and kindness and for now Rumplestiltskin is willing to believe that that is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is weird and experimental. I wrote it in a really chaotic and jumbled way on purpose because I imagine Rumple's mind is absolute chaos after so long, but I really can't decide if it works or if it's just annoying so if anyone has anything at all to say about that, please do share.
> 
> I also apologize if I've killed/harmed/brutally maimed someone by the endless run-on sentences because they were definitely getting on my nerves, at least. I swear I'm going to write in four-word sentences from now on.


End file.
